Election losers: Homeless on the Hill

Some of the most senior and respected members of Congress are among the dozens of outgoing lawmakers whose offices have been crammed into tiny basement cubicles as their old offices are emptied and refurbished.

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“We have 82 members who do not have an office,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “We have 82 members who are operating out of a little cubicle. ... That’s a terrible situation to have members in, and I don’t like it.”

And while nobody seems to be throwing fits about missing red Swingline staplers, the basement bullpen is quite a comedown for some of the most powerful members of Congress, who virtually overnight went from comfortable congressional veterans to homeless on the Hill.

Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), the transportation committee chairman who championed legislation to fix America’s crowded highways, faces an overcrowding issue of his own, a drastic change from the royal blue carpet, piles of crisp legislative papers and transportation memorabilia that once filled his cheery Rayburn office.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), an outspoken liberal firebrand who raised at least $5.1 million this election cycle, will be squatting in other members’ offices or an open committee room until the lame-duck session ends, his press secretary said.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), who was chairman of the critical Social Security subcommittee of Ways and Means, now holds meetings in the Longworth Cafeteria.

“Yesterday was the first time in 18 years I didn’t have a home on the Hill,” he told POLITICO. “It was an odd feeling.”

Even without their offices, staffs or favorite chairs, members are still expected to show up for votes and hearings, and to conduct other legislative activities during the lame-duck session that has stretched past this week’s deadline for outgoing lawmakers to vacate their offices.

In an act of sympathy, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) offered Pomeroy space in his offices to hold meetings with constituents. But Pomeroy said he thinks he’ll be able to take care of those meetings in public areas.

“I spend a lot of time in Longworth Cafeteria,” Pomeroy said.

“Bittersweet,” Oberstar calls the experience. “As files, memos and mementos are sorted, boxed or discarded, you have an opportunity to look back and evaluate things you’ve accomplished.”

“Anxious,” was the sentiment of Oberstar press secretary John Schadl, who sent out his final SOS e-mail to reporters on Tuesday, just before computer officials came to seize his hard drive.

“In a few hours, the House administrative staff will take my laptop and wipe the hard drive,” he wrote to reporters, warning that further communications would be “tricky” to keep up. “Starting tomorrow, we will be given a cubicle in the basement with a single computer and a phone.”

“I wasn’t counting on this,” Schadl told POLITICO as he maneuvered through stacks of boxes and past computer technicians busy wiping the rest of the staff’s computers.

Schadl’s new space in the staff bullpen is so small, he’s even packed up his favorite desktop decoration — a half-brick from the streets of Duluth, Minn., a memento that he’s displayed on his desk for decades.